Philosophy T1,A
- Created by: mar_
- Created on: 05-04-17 14:03
T1: Inductive Arguments.
A: Cosmological.
Trying to solve a murder. Didn’t witness it first-hand. Gather evidence (photos, examinations, reports) to try and figure it out.
That’s a conclusion reached via inductive proof. Often the only type available (not present to empirically witness it). Inductive proofs are a posteriori (require evidence and/or experience).
Cosmological and teleological arguments ask the question ‘where did it come from?’ They look at the structure and function of the universe and the things within to suggest an order and purpose that could not have occurred by chance. Evidence is gathered and conclusions are posited.
Aquinas’ First Way.
Motion or change.
When we observe the universe, things tend to be in a state of change or motion. Aquinas noted that things do not do this of their own accord but are ‘moved’ or ‘changed’ by something else.
‘But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality.’ – Aquinas.
Look down the sequence of movements – come to something that started the sequence. All things in the universe are moving/movers, need to find point, looking outside the universe. (something that has not been moved by anything else and is incapable of being moved/changed by anything else but responsible for initiating the sequence.
Aristotle named this the ‘Prime Mover’ and Aquinas developed this into the ‘Unmoved Mover’ – ‘that which all men call God’.
Aquinas builds on Aristotle’s examples. Aristotles speaks of things moving from a state of potentiality towards a state of actuality.
Both Aristotle and Aquinas noted thhat this change could only happen if something that already possessed a state of actuality acted on that which was in its state of potentiality. This third party is known as the efficient cause.
Aristotle used the example of a block of marble (potential) becoming a statue (actual) but only when acted upon by the sculptor (efficient cause). Aquinas used the example of wood, burning wood and fire. In this, Aquinas is stating that the fire that makes wood hot must already have the property of hotness within itself in order, in turn, to make the wood hot. Were it to have any other state (e.g. coldness) within itself then it would be impossible to make the wood hot.
Aquinas’ Second Way.
Cause and Effect.
Everything observable in nature is subject to this law (Aquinas says) cannot/impossible to track infinitely. ‘What was the first cause?’ Aquinas says God.
Aquinas states not only is it simple, undeniable law of the universe but that it is impossible for anything within the universe to cause itself. Its like you being your own parent – you cannot exist before you exist (you need something else to bring you into existance.
Imagine a line of dominoes. The first (efficient cause) causes the second (intermediate cause) to fall, which then causes the third (ultimate cause) to fall. The third would not have fallen had the first one not have hit the second one. Aquinas’ idea of efficient cause…
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